Corona Devotionals

On a walk the other day, I came upon a tree.   A tall, beautiful, straight  tree.  So erect, and ... so straight... its vertical-ness seemed to be like a wooden line drawn from within the earth into the sky: straight up...and straight down.  It was awe-inspiring. I had to stop to admire the alignment and the stark statement that this (so straight!) tree trunk seemed to make.   There was not a crooked crick in this tree's trunk, and staring up at it seemed to me as if I was staring up into a perfect specimen of a tree.   Its stance was perfectly true.   Its height was noble.   Each inch seemed perfectly right , and the tree as a whole was completely admirable .   This tree...this beautiful, straight, tall, and true tree   seemed to stand for all things correct and righteous. Do we?   Might anyone accuse us  of resembling this tree in spiritual-stance and effect?    Finally, brothers and sisters...

There were no open rooms left in the hotel, even though we called early for reservations with the group block, and so my husband did something he's never done: we rented a little house in the (out of state) area where we were playing soccer.  Just about the same cost as the hotel...but space  for five, and no one had to be on an inflatable mattress on the floor.  It was lovely. ...And a lake.  A little lake, but one of the prettiest I've seen, and the peace that emitted from it was vast.  On the lake and lakeside, we had smores, we fished a little, kayaked a little, got submerged a little...and under the guise of soccer games: we were a family together .  It was truly wonderful, and on the last lovely morning...as our kids slept, and my husband jogged, I walked down to the lake to sit with God and His Word.  Each morning on this walk down, I panned the trees just in case a bald eagle (one of my heart's delights) might be in the area, and today ...

Sitting on a lake dock the other day, I was taking in the beauty of lily pads and water lilies that surrounded the waters edge. What type of water lily are we today? Some of the blooms were tightly tucked-up within themselves...petals not-yet-unfurled and as yet clenched-shut to the sun's rays and to the day.  Are we this water lily flower today? Exhausted.  Shut down.  Guarded and protective of our hearts...and jaded toward joy because of life's many jabs? So many things in this world can cause our spirit and our faith to clam up...to shrivel back from the world, and even to question God's hope.   And if our faith is tightly clenched today...God rests here with us.   Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.  ~Psalm 23:4  “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest....

As our oldest child (almost 20 years old) hopped into the shower the other day, I heard him playing music on his phone from behind the closed bathroom door.  He enjoys listening to everything from Christian music to pop, and rock, and country too, but the song he was singing along to was one from his childhood, and I was surprised he even remembered it, let alone had added it to his playlist. “Sing” is a song he learned while watching Sesame Street as a toddler, and you might be able to sing along to it too: Sing, sing a song Sing out loud Sing out strong Sing of good things not bad Sing of happy not sad Joe Raposo, 1971 (Sesame Street) We may or may not be familiar with that song (about singing), but Revelation Chapter 15 says that we ( t hose who will be  victorious over the beast and its image and over the number of its name ),,,all of us will sing a song.   We will sing it out loud.  We will sing it out strong.  And we will be singing o...

On a boat ride the other day, everyone aboard was searching for water life...and killer whales were at the top of everyone's watch list.  Orcas have been spotted in the area waters, and we set sail with high hopes of glimpsing one or more of these glorious beasts. We never saw an orca, but we did lock in with a large Gray Whale for about 25 minutes, as he rose to the surface to breathe and then fell to the sand bar forty-feet beneath to scoop up mouthfuls of sediment and feast on the amphipod crustaceans within.   Seeing the Gray Whale was fascinating and amazing, but do you know what drew the most oohhs and aahhhs from our family and the other people peering over the side of the boat?  Dolphins .   Porpoises, to be more specific.  We had a number of quick and periodic sightings of Harbor Porpoises, and oh, how they delighted and tickled us!   Not as grandiose or as famed as whales, Harbor porpoises native to these waters happened to be swimm...